Private Keeping Promises.

[Darth Virelia]

"Welcome to hell."

Tag - Cin



The shuttle's descent was silent—unnaturally so. No hum of repulsorlifts. No clatter of exterior wind shear. Just the cold, omnipresent static of the void brushing against the ship's hull, pressing in like a breath held too long.

Inside, the world was dim. Not dark, but dim, deliberately so—Serina Calis preferred it that way. Harsh light made people honest. Dimness let them lie, and lies were more useful than truth.

The woman reclined in the co-pilot's chair, one long leg crossed over the other, armored fingers laced loosely in her lap. The mask she had worn in the battle over Axilla was absent now, left behind in a sealed case aboard her flagship. The thin, supple line of her mouth was free to curve into dangerous smiles again. Her hair was loose beneath the cowl of her travel cloak, golden waves catching in the soft violet underlighting of the cockpit. The only sound was the occasional ping of sensor sweeps and the low, rasping breathing of the pilot—an older man, grizzled and scarred, wrapped in the silence of someone who'd seen far too much, and survived far too little.

"You're quiet tonight, Vikaan," she said at last, her voice low, almost conspiratorial.

He didn't glance at her. His eyes stayed on the instruments.

"You pay me to fly. Not talk."

"I pay you to listen," Serina corrected, her tone indulgent. "The talking is a luxury you get after you've earned my continued pleasure."

That earned her a grunt. But still no eye contact.

She turned her head slightly, gazing out the viewport to the shadowed terrain below. The southern hemisphere of Ukatis was a forgotten land—uncivilized, unmapped, and unworthy of political mention. Even before the rebellion, few dared venture into the volcanic plateaus and blackened forests of Mount Avara's shadow. There were old superstitions here. Pre-Alliance. Pre-King. Even pre-Republic.

But Serina did not traffic in superstition.

She trafficked in secrets.

And she had left one behind.

"The Sith failed here," she said softly, to no one in particular. "They threw fire and fear at a world already drowning in both. And when the Jedi struck back, they retreated like beaten dogs, tails tucked and teeth chipped."

Now Vikaan did glance at her.

"You were there."

"I was," Serina said, smiling faintly. "On the dragon. Above the battle. Below the stars."

He didn't answer, but his jaw clenched—just enough to be seen.

She chuckled.

"You disapprove."

"I disbelieve," he replied gruffly. "I've seen the holos. I know the damage. I know what some of you Sith can do. But a dragon, Serina? And now you're telling me we're flying back into that madness—into the heart of Avara—for what? Gratitude?"

The last word hung in the air like acid smoke.

She stood slowly, walking behind him, her fingers trailing lightly over the headrest of his chair as she passed.

"Do you know the difference between a Sith and a monster, Vikaan?" she asked, lips close to his ear now. "A monster feeds only on pain. A Sith… invests. We take the pain, we shape it. We build legacies from the bones of our enemies and make cathedrals of the mind."

She circled back in front of him, stopping by the forward panel. Her hand pressed to the glass, her eyes distant.

"The dragon," she murmured, "was never mine. But it chose me. And I used it. As all Sith must. But I am not Malum. I am not Nefaron."

Another pause.

"I keep my promises."

Vikaan stared at her for a long moment.

"You want to free it."

Serina tilted her head toward him, one brow arched.

"Don't sound so surprised. You know, I often get accused of being a manipulator, a schemer, a seductress. And I am. But there are rare moments where sentiment slips its knife into me and twists. That dragon—Cin—was a creature bound in flesh and sorcery, chained by madmen to a dying world. He gave me power. Carried me into legend. He deserves more than silence and rot beneath the mountain."

She returned to the co-pilot's seat, lowering herself gracefully.

"Besides…" She smirked. "I suspect the cult isn't quite as dead as Nefaron left them."

Vikaan tapped a few controls. The ship adjusted course, descending into a narrow ravine nestled between two jagged cliffs at the base of Mount Avara. Ash swirled like mist through the air outside, clinging to the sensors in thick, obscuring curtains.

"And what if it's a trap?" he asked. "What if they remember the woman who turned their so-called 'God' into a saddle?"

Serina's smile turned sharper.

"I hope they remember. I want them to."

Outside, the terrain changed—black glass, lava-streaked rock, and deep runes scorched into the earth like veins of blight. Ancient, sigil-laced obelisks rose from the mist, broken and crumbling, but watching. This was no mere ruin. This was a tomb.

The shuttle's ramp hissed open. Serina rose once more, adjusting her cloak as she stepped toward the exit.

"Seal the ship," she said over her shoulder. "You'll feel me if I need you. Or you'll hear the screams. Either way—don't come after me."

"And the dragon?" Vikaan asked, voice low.

She paused at the edge of the ramp, framed by the violet glow of emergency landing lights and the oppressive red fog beyond.

"Cin," she whispered, tasting the name again, like old wine.

"He was never mine. But perhaps, in freeing him… I can be something more than just his rider."

Her boots touched the ash-choked ground, and the mountain loomed before her.

Old magic slept here.

And tonight, Serina Calis came not to command…

…but to repay a debt.

 

[Cin]

Perhaps, at one point, Mount Avara had been home to a priestly order. Something more ancient than the current Kingdom of Ukatis, dedicated to Old Gods fallen out of memory. They'd chiseled a temple into the depths of the volcano, between the shale and ancient volcanic glass, thousands of years ago. Only recently had it found new purpose, as the Faithful of Avara made it their home. A great forge, they called it, where they would smith the world to their liking. And with their Weapon's first test swing being a success... The Faithful were planning their next steps.

The Viscount's rebellion failed because it relied on outsiders. They did not have such weakness.

The entrance to their hideout was well-hidden- within a crevasse in the sharp-edged mountainside, camouflaged from the air, guarded by black-robed cultists wielding pillaged blasters and black glass knives. Beyond them was a labyrinthian mess of tunnels carved with runes and supported by ancient pillars. But it wasn't hard to find the Beating Heart. One only had to follow the heat.

"It's wonderful news, isn't it?" One of the entrance guards flipped their dagger up in the air, catching it between a thumb and finger. "The Dragonmaster planning to ride the Shadow to the Capital?"

"...Indeed." Another watched out into the red fog with a peering gaze. "Has the Most Faithful received... divine guidance on the subject? Upon first impressions, that seems... ill-advised."

"It's practical, acolyte." The first cultist swore, cutting their thumb as they caught the blade wrong. "Axilla is still off-balance and ill-prepared. The outsiders may be honorless cowards, but their weapons of destruction have left the Kingdom weak. If we show our strength, the people will have no choice but to support us over that new pansy they've decided to flop onto the throne. Then the Beast will eat that pesky Viscount's Daughter, and we will have control of Ukatis' true destiny."

"And the Dragonmaster is certain that now is the right time for this? Ever since he was rejected as the Shadow Rider, he's been..."

"Mykus Cowl controls the Dragon, acolyte. His word is divine." The senior cultist all but pointed their knife at the junior. "And that is the end of that."




Darkness. Fog. Pain. Heat. Cold. Bitter metal and blood and burning, bolted into his neck, clinging to his face. Fleeting thoughts like mist, burning away in the morning sun before he could make heads or tails of them. He felt as if he were in a nightmare, flying without direction, understanding always staying one wingbeat away...

"Cin."

...What?

What was she doing here?

- Darth Virelia -

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Welcome to hell."

Tag - Cin



The crevasse was narrow—too narrow for pride. A jagged slash carved into the volcanic glass and obsidian, deep enough to hide anything, even a myth. Even a god. Serina Calis stepped through it sideways, her armored shoulder brushing against stone still warm with the memory of eruptions. Her cloak dragged through red ash and bone dust, staining its lower hem in death and legacy alike.

She could smell them before she saw them. The Faithful.

Sweat, copper, blood. The stench of obsession. Ritual. There was no mistaking the particular rot that settled on a place like this—where belief festered and faith became feral. It clung to every wall, every rune carved in trembling hands, every prayer whispered into cracked stone mouths by starving cultists desperate to give shape to meaning.

She remembered this temple. Not from experience—yet—but from the dreams.

There had been fragments in her sleep ever since she rode the dragon. Fire-wrapped visions. Breathing corridors. Murmured chants from no tongue she'd studied. All fog, until the signal from Nefaron's toxin had unlocked something in her. An echo. An image. A word.

A return.

Now she was here. Beneath the Mountain. Beneath the world.

And he was close.

Cin.

The dragon.

She paused just inside the tunnel entrance, between the lightless world and the flickering torch sconces ahead. There were guards. Two. One clutched a dagger like it was an extension of his will; the other peered out with a nervous posture poorly masked by ritual discipline. Their robes were filth-streaked, their boots cracked, their eyes heavy with devotion and sleep-deprivation.

Serina did not draw a weapon. She didn't need to.

She stepped into view as if she were meant to be there.

And in truth, she was.

The first guard spotted her immediately, hand twitching toward his weapon with the telltale readiness of someone trained just enough to die second. His mouth opened.

"You—"

"You will not call for help," Serina interrupted, voice smooth as wine and just as dark. "You will kneel."

It wasn't a suggestion. The Force itself wove around her words like a silk garrote.

The senior cultist hesitated only a second. A heartbeat. But it was enough. She raised her hand slowly, fingers splayed, and gave the gentlest flick of her wrist.

He crumpled, dropping to his knees like his legs had remembered gravity too late. His blade fell beside him.

The junior followed without being asked.

Smart.

Serina stepped between them, boots kissing the ancient stone with reverent silence. The air grew warmer as she moved deeper—moist, pulsing, alive. The torchlight revealed walls engraved in slanted runes older than the Faithful themselves, older than the Kingdom, older than memory. This was not a temple. It was a womb. And something inside it had been born too early.

Or kept alive too long.

"Dragonmaster," she murmured under her breath. "Your house smells of weakness."

The corridors twisted with mad geometry—deliberately confusing to outsiders, but Serina was no outsider. Not anymore. The memory of riding the dragon—the sensation of their shared will laced by fire and defiance—had anchored something within her. She knew the way. She followed the heat.

She passed through a dozen chambers of worship. Each more deranged than the last. One had a floor entirely of glass—beneath it, blood drained from unseen sources in slow, spiraling patterns. Another was filled with skeletal remains nailed to the walls in the shape of wings. She admired the symbolism. It wasn't hers, but she appreciated the effort.

Finally, she found the Beating Heart.

The forge.

It pulsed like a living organ—an industrial sanctum of slag and steel and magma-choked breath. The ceiling loomed high above her, supported by massive obsidian pillars etched in jagged spirals. Chained braziers cast flickering orange light across the black floor. There were tools, altars, and—at the far end—a cage.

Not of metal.

Of will.

Not locked by bars, but by expectation, tradition, fear. Runes floated in the air like flies. Circles of sorcery. Twisted glyphs. Blood enchantments carved by trembling hands desperate to own what could never truly be theirs.

And within the cage, shackled in silence and steam, was him.

Cin.

The dragon's frame was curled in on itself, vast wings folded like broken monuments, his body scorched by old runes and new bindings. The collar still clung to his neck, pulsing faintly with unnatural light. His breath came shallow, slow, but watchful. As if his mind had become a field of ice beneath which fire still stirred.

He felt her before he saw her.

"Cin," Serina said again. Louder this time. Clearer.

She stepped to the edge of the containment circle, kneeling low, fingers brushing the boundary line of glowing ash. Her eyes did not burn with pity. That was not something she gave.

But they did shimmer with something else.

Promise.

"You remember me," she whispered. "Don't you?"

 

[Cin]

No matter who they were, or from what backwater rock they lived under, some things about cultists were universal. Namely, they respected power.

Serina remained uncontested as she entered Mount Avara, the acrid smell of sulfur and melted rock heavy on the air. She certainly wasn't alone, however. A Sith such as her would feel eyes following her, something in the Force watching her every move.

It wasn't long before she found him. Curled in on himself, lulled into a sleep by bastardized runes, was the Dragon. Held at the neck by spined chains. His face once more dipped in molten metal, muzzled by cruel, ugly iron.

She said his name again. The runes in the air seemed to flicker and dance. The Dragon didn't open his eye- but a weak voice found it's way to Serina's mind, muffled and unsteady, as if it were drugged.

Why are you here?
​

"I recognize you, o Shadow-Rider." Mykus Cowl stepped around the Dragon's side, his presence erupting as if from nowhere. He held a hand against one of the beast's wings, inspecting a rune slashed into it's skin. It was new. Fresh and still-bleeding. "You were unwise to come here. Then again, your kind are not known for their wisdom."

You are from a dream.​

A moment of inspection would reveal something had changed since their last encounter. It was as if the souls of the Dragon and it's captor had been lashed tightly together with the Force. It was imperfect, sloppy, abominable. Inventive. The Dragonmaster peeled at one of the new runes, agitating the tender flesh, causing dark blood to run down to the floor. The Dragon didn't flinch.

"Though, I suppose I should thank you. Fate has attracted you to the belly of the beast. Figuratively, and- I imagine in a few minutes- literally."

It was a... pleasant dream.
​

- Darth Virelia -

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Welcome to hell."

Tag - Cin



Serina stood at the threshold of the forge, light casting long shadows around her like jealous lovers. The air was heavy with heat and rot and blood and lies. She breathed it in slowly through her nose, savoring the cocktail of sacred desecration. The scent of ancient gods being exhumed and replaced with theater. Of borrowed power desperately lashed together by zealotry and bad technique.

Her eyes slid to Mykus Cowl, then back to the dragon—her dragon—muzzled again, pinned like an artifact too dangerous to be believed in. She didn't rush. No anger. No fury. Just… disappointment, drawn out like a blade across silk.

"You've made him worse," she said at last, and her voice was not raised, but it carried. Through stone. Through blood. Through the aching bones of the mountain itself. "Which is almost impressive, in the way a child might impress you by setting their house on fire to make a torch."

She stepped forward, the hem of her cloak dragging in the dragon's blood as though it were paint for an unseen sigil. Her eyes flicked to the fresh rune carved into Cin's flesh. Her tongue clicked once behind her teeth.

"Sloppy work, Mykus. Sloppy, and desperate. But then, I suppose that's the only language you speak now, isn't it? You're not a master of the dragon. You're a parasite with an altar."

She knelt by Cin's head. Her gloved hand reached out, tracing the line where the molten metal met raw scale. Not touching—not yet. Her power reached instead. Whispering. Soothing. Something in the way one might handle a wounded predator: not with pity, but with respect.

Why are you here?
You are from a dream.
It was a... pleasant dream.

"I know," she murmured back, her thoughts brushing his like silk against scars. "And I'm here to make it real."

She rose again, languidly. Like a serpent uncoiling from a sun-warmed stone.

"And you," she said, turning her full gaze on Mykus now—piercing, amused, surgical. "Still clinging to your gods like an old woman clutching the bones of a husband who never loved her. You've lashed your soul to a being that despises you. You've twisted rites you never understood. You've called this—" she gestured lightly to the forge, the chains, the bloody ruin carved into Cin's side "—control."

She smiled now. Sweet. Condescending.

"You're not the Dragonmaster. You're a frightened priest licking the rim of a chalice you'll never be allowed to drink from."

A slow step forward. Her voice dipped, quiet, intimate—dangerous.

"And do you know why I came back, Mykus?"

She didn't wait for his answer.

"I came to offer him a choice."

She tilted her head toward Cin, eyes softening—but only for him.

"You never did."

She opened the palm of her hand, lightning spewing violently towards Mykus.

 

[Cin]

Mykus clicked his tongue once. A sharp, callous sound.

And the Dragon's head snapped forward, interceding between it's slavemaster and it's once-rider. The metal of it's face absorbed the lightning, traveling through the beast's body, but leaving Mykus untouched. The Dragon growled in pain, but offered no other protest.

"Oh, my dear. My sweet, foolish girl." It seemed he was unaffected by Serina's condescension, as he returned it in spades. There was a manic glint in his eye, as he gathered some cruel joy at stoking his own bruised ego. "You think with your barbed tongue, rather than your brain, it seems. The runes hold. The Destined Dragon is mine. And the only choice offered here is the method of your demise."

"On second thought, why don't I choose for you?"

The air suddenly dried, and it became harder to breathe. Serina had felt this blistering heat before.

I... wish I could awake. But my eyes are... so heavy.
​

The mask sloughed off the Dragon's face as a torrent of flame erupted from his gaping maw, attempting to engulf Serina, her side of the room, and twenty meters down the tunnel she entered from in rock-glassing heat. But oddly enough... around her, the flames weakened slightly, as if they weren't entirely willing to touch her. She would still cook if she did nothing, but Cin was fighting, somewhere in there.

All the while, his eyes were closed. And Mykus Cowl was cackling.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Welcome to hell."

Tag - Cin



The fire came like judgment.

A torrent of hate and agony and sorcery spewed from the dragon's maw, a weaponized scream channeled through flesh and rune. It slammed into the volcanic glass, melted stone into slag, turned the ancient bones of gods to ash. The heat punched into Serina's body like the sun itself had decided to reach down and touch her.

And yet—

Something resisted.

The fire curved as it neared her. Recoiled. Bent. Hesitated.

Even in the tempest of annihilation, he still knew her.

She raised a single hand—delicate, gloved, regal—and the flames parted like waves before a prow. Her cloak smoldered at the edges, the embroidered hems burning away in curling tongues, but she did not retreat. Did not scream. Did not blink.

She stepped through the fire.

Face flushed. Skin glistening with sweat. Eyes alight—not with fear, but with something worse.

Amusement.

"Do you hear him?" she asked, voice hoarse but crystalline, speaking not to Mykus but to the dragon, even as he groaned beneath the weight of false sorcery. "He still believes he is the master. That these runes, these borrowed incantations and drunken prayers, mean something."

Her gaze flicked to Mykus then—cold, bright, ancient.

"You sad little leech."

Lightning sparked to life in her palm. Not in rage, not in wrath, but in judgment. It laced around her fingers like silk stitched from stormclouds, gathering at her fingertips with a controlled hum that shook the air around them. It wasn't raw. It wasn't explosive. It was refined.

Surgical.

She lifted her hand toward him, slowly. Almost lovingly.

"Do you know what you've done, Mykus?" Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "You've taken something ancient. Something powerful. Something sacred. And you chained it to your mediocrity."

"You," she said, letting the lightning dance higher up her arm, "are not a master. You're not even a priest. You're a child in his father's robes, playing god with matches in a temple soaked in oil."

"You look at me, and you think I am like you—a user. A thief. A parasite."

Another step.

"You wish."

Her eyes flared now, radiant and cruel.

"I am not the thief."

"I am the Corruptor of the Light."

The lightning cracked outward, refracting through the forge's shimmering air.

"I don't take power, Mykus. I change it. I elevate it. I unmake gods and refashion them in my image."

Her hand pulsed with the next surge—deeper, darker, charged not just with the Force but with conviction.

"You cling to a creature you can barely comprehend and call it destiny. But I don't need a leash, because he chose himself. He remembers me."

Her voice dropped, soft as a secret.

"And even now, beneath all your chains… he still fights for him, for me."

Then, louder—sharper—clear:

"You think you can burn me? I taught fire how to beg."

The lightning screamed from her hand.

 

[Cin]

"Do you hear him? He still believes he is the master."

There it was.

There had been something... missing, from Cin, ever since the Rebellion. After he'd been recollected by the Faithful, brought back into the heart of the Mountain, new calligraphy torn into his body, there had been an emptiness. Something that yawned in his core, something he was sure he'd never been without before, but didn't have the mind to place. But those words reminded him. Cin knew one thing, and one thing alone, to be true.

He still believes he is the master.

I am mine.
​

The runes floating midair around them seemed to bend under the stress of a new will. The scrawlings etched into his sides began to bleed anew, as if irritated. Mykus Cowl barely seemed to notice, distracted by Serina's tongue-lashing.

"Insipid fool," the Dragonmaster returned, unflinching in the face of the young Sith. "You have known the Shadow for less than a day, and believe to view it's inner thoughts, like some nature-charmed Jedi? It's a weapon! Unthinking and unfeeling, crafted by a master smith for one purpose, and one purpose alone- to burn for me."

​

Again, the dragon leapt in front of Serina's lightning, but something was different this time. It coiled around Mykus, using it's whole body to absorb the pinpoint precision of her strikes, rotating around him to disperse the damage. But he paused, just for a moment at a time, as it struck and sizzled against each of the runes in his flesh, disfiguring them one by one.

"Do you see!?" Mykus practically crowed in victory. "It burns, and now it will burn you!"

The Destined Dragon, Heart, Soul, and Shadow of Mount Avara, Beast of Legend and Incinerator of the Summer Rain, drafted a deep breath, causing the air in the room to escape the lungs of all present. He opened his mouth, a terrible furnace appearing inside...

And he blew a smoke ring around Serina's body, and laid lazily on the ground, finally opening his eyes to await the dawning horror sure to appear on his captor's face.

Ah, there it is.

- Darth Virelia -

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Welcome to hell."

Tag - Cin



Serina stood at the center of the storm, framed in curling smoke and ozone and the smell of scorched arrogance.

The smoke ring passed around her like a lover's arm, warm and soft and very deliberate. It parted her hair. Tasted her skin. Carried the scent of old fire and new defiance. Her posture didn't waver—didn't need to. One gloved hand lingered midair, the last traces of lightning dancing off her fingertips like aftershocks of a spell that hadn't quite finished speaking.

Then she smiled.

Not the tight smile of a tactician, nor the gloating grin of a conqueror.

No. This one was wider. Sharper. The kind of smile you see on statues of gods just before they turn their gaze upon you.

"Well," she said, voice smooth and rich and undeniably pleased, "that was dramatic."

She let the words hang, the silence stretching long enough to wrap around Mykus Cowl's throat.

Then her eyes slid to Cin—fully this time. Not the weapon. Not the bound beast. Him. The thing beneath the chains, the flame beneath the muzzle. His eyes were open now, and in their molten depths, she saw clarity where there had only been fog. Resistance where there had been obedience. A choice.

And he had made it.

"Oh, darling," she said softly, affectionately, walking forward with the slow, swaying poise of a woman who already owned the outcome. "You remembered."

She stopped beside him, one hand resting on the iron plating of his shoulder, just over the ruined latticework of a rune still sizzling from her last strike. The contact wasn't possessive. It was familiar. Reverent. Intimate in the way only shared trauma could be.

Her eyes didn't leave Mykus.

"I warned you," she said, and her voice was almost pitying. "I told you he was never yours."

She circled Cin slowly now, trailing her fingers across his body as she moved, letting her touch follow the paths of broken runes, disrupted chains, blistered brands that now struggled to hold. Her tone dropped, indulgent and low.

"I didn't need a leash," she repeated, almost to herself.

She leaned lightly against Cin's shoulder, legs crossed at the ankle, utterly unbothered by the cackling failure in front of her.

"You called him a weapon. Something unthinking, unfeeling—but you were never forging metal, Mykus. You were carving into will. You can't mold it. You can't melt it. You can only cage it. And caged things don't forget."

She sighed, lips parting in mock sympathy.

"Oh, and you really should've made sure he was asleep before calling him stupid out loud."

Serina tilted her head slightly, golden hair catching in the heat-warped air like a flame crowned in gold.

"I was always going to free him," she said, soft as a lover's confession. "But now?"

Now she bared her teeth.

"I think I'll let him decide what to do with you."

Then she looked up at Cin, voice warm with pride and decadence.

"Shall I start the music, or would you prefer the opening act yourself?"

 

[Cin]

"Oh, darling. You remembered."

Cin rolled his cold-iron eyes, sighing in some mix of playful contempt and exasperation.

One might've expected an unshackled dragon to break into a frenzy the first chance it got. But not Cin. No, he was quiet. Thoughtful. And entirely too happy to bask in the moment.

He didn't move as Serina let her fingers trace along his scales. He could hardly feel it, save for when her hand passed along the raw burns that cracked his runes. At each broken spell, his skin shivered, ever so slightly, the wound still raw, the feeling of old magick present, but quickly fading. He bore it with no protest.

She had broken his curse. Let her have her fun.

When she leaned on his shoulder, Cin finally looked up, peering over the Sith's head at Mykus. He was like a cat, staring at the bird it had batted out of the sky- stock still, waiting for it to struggle, to move, to entertain. For his part, the Dragonmaster certainly wasn't cackling now. Instead, he wore an expression of abject horror, as his and his family's lifes work was broken before his eyes, all concept of words abandoning him. As he stared at his doom, and the dragon she had freed.

The Sith was letting him choose. He'd never gotten to do that before. After a moment of thought, the great drake spoke in Serina's mind, in the grating voice of one who had never known gentleness.

He would consider it an honor to die by my hand.

Make his end undignified.
​

- Darth Virelia -

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Welcome to hell."

Tag - Cin



Oh, how she smiled.

Not in mockery. Not even in victory. But in possession.

Serina turned toward Mykus with that same languid elegance she gave to stroking the scales of a dragon—one who had just sentenced his slaver to a death of no dignity, no honor, no poetry.

And Serina? She was the right woman for the job.

"Make it undignified," she murmured, echoing Cin's voice with her own husky timbre. "I can do that."

Her boots clicked slowly across the stone as she approached the man who had called himself a master. No tension in her gait. No urgency in her steps. Just the assurance of someone who knew, with absolute certainty, that time had bent to her whim, and now it would kneel.

Mykus didn't move. He couldn't. Whether it was fear or the last trembling dregs of the chains unraveling around them, it didn't matter. He had built this prison. Now he would be buried in it.

She stopped a breath away from him. Close enough to see the sweat collecting beneath his eyes. Close enough for him to feel the heat radiating off her body—heat that wasn't from the volcano, or the dragon, but from her. From a core that was molten will, burning from the inside out.

"You know," she said softly, almost wistfully, "they always beg."

One glove slipped from her hand as she reached up and brushed a single finger down the center of his chest, tracing the line between collarbones. "But you don't seem like the begging type. No, not you. You'll break long before you kneel."

She looked into his eyes, then. Really looked. Past the bravado, past the bloodlines, past the useless tattoos of power he'd carved into Cin's flesh. She looked down into the brittle little scaffolding that made up the man.

"You should've stuck to books," she said, lips barely parted. "You might've made a tolerable librarian. A historian, maybe. Something harmless. But this?"

Her other hand rose—bare, pale, charged with soft crackles of energy like silk wrapping around wire. She raised two fingers, and power gathered. Not fast. Not with fury. But methodically.

"I don't want your secrets," she whispered. "I don't care what you were trying to do. I don't need to understand you."

Now lightning gathered at her fingertips, coiling not in bursts but in threads—thin and cold and precise. The kind of current that dances behind the eyes before it ever dares scream.

"You had your little rituals. Your control. Your formulas. And now?"

She leaned in, her lips at his ear.

"Now I have it all."

She didn't roar when she began.

Serina hummed.

A low, delighted hum, a sound of complete indulgence as she guided the lightning in slow, surgical pulses directly into the nerve clusters beneath his skin. She didn't strike for damage. No—damage was too kind. She sought coherence, wanted him lucid for every second. She dragged agony out like a poem, an aria of neurons being flayed. Every inch of his body was lit with skittering torment, each twitch and scream a note in her masterpiece.

At the same time, she drew her other hand and began to drain all of his knowledge and secrets directly, prying at the private with deadly efficiency.

And she never looked away. Not for an instant.

She smiled at every tremor. Moaned, just a little, when he choked on his own breath.

"I could do this for hours," she murmured, tongue wetting her bottom lip. "But unfortunately…"

Her fingers curled into a fist, and the lightning jumped to full brightness—searing into him like a thousand tiny daggers, blinding arcs biting into his ribs, his joints, his spine. Every tattoo, every rune he'd ever etched into another soul, was answered.

"…I don't like the sound of your voice."

And with that, she crushed the current.

The final bolt didn't scream—it sang. A cutting chord of white-blue fire that lifted him from the ground, froze him midair in one final rictus, and then dropped him to the stone like the broken tool he was.

Serina exhaled. Long. Slow. Her eyes half-lidded in satisfaction, the scent of scorched flesh rising like incense around her.

She turned without another word, walking back toward Cin as if she'd just finished brushing lint off her shoulder.

Control was beautiful. Corruption was divine.

And in the end, Mykus Cowl had been neither.

 

[Cin]

Mykus Cowl had Cin's undivided attention for one last time.

He watched, cold and still as a gargoyle, as Serina unmade his wielder like one might pluck apart a shirt, seam by seam. Inwardly, the fire that consumed him, that incessant rage, was fed by the raw screams of pain. He took pleasure in watching Mykus feel what he'd put the Dragon through, every pain returned in kind, more thoroughly and completely than he could ever hope to inflict.

But Cin was not blinded by his vengeance fulfilled. He noticed the Sith siphoning knowledge from the cultist's mind. He would have to be careful.

The corpse of the would-be Dragonmaster dropped to the ground, still steaming, frozen with a mask of agony on his face. Cin considered it a moment, before raising his eyes to the Sith. His eyes flashed golden as he spoke in her mind.

This is not kindness.
​

The dragon continued to lounge on the stone, but the muscles under his grey scales began to tense. The temperature in the room seemed to raise.

Why?
​

- Darth Virelia -

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Welcome to hell."

Tag - Cin



Serina did not flinch under the question. She had expected it, perhaps even invited it.

Her bare fingers slid once more over Cin's molten-warmed hide, her touch as deliberate as a sculptor teasing shape from raw stone. It was not a caress born of pity or affection. It was claiming. Not yet ownership—no, not yet. But something more potent. A declaration of interest. A signal of intent.

Her boots clicked softly as she rounded him, letting her cloak drag behind her like an extension of her mood: slow, smoky, regal.

"This..." she said, voice low and laced with velvet, "...is freedom."

She did not raise her voice, nor fill the chamber with theatrics. That had been Mykus' failing—his need to perform, to preach, to be seen. Serina's strength was subtler. It pressed in around you without bluster, without grand declarations. Like heat on skin. Like gravity.

She stepped into Cin's view again, close, close enough for the dragon to feel her presence—serpentine and calculating.

Her golden eyes narrowed slightly. "And I am no Jedi, to offer it without price."

She crouched, resting her forearm lazily over her knee, lowering herself until her face was level with his. Her other hand reached out, not to pet or coddle, but to let her fingertips hover near the jagged, still-bleeding rune across his shoulder. A broken chain, barely healed. "You mistake this for a kindness," she said softly. "But it is not mercy that drives me."

Then, almost amused, she tilted her head. "Do I seem like a merciful woman to you?"

The corner of her mouth lifted.

"No... this is an investment, Cin. A trade of sorts. I give you your body. Your breath. Your fire. And in return..." her voice dropped an octave, huskier, more intimate now, "...you give me your will."

She stood again, but not in haste. In ritual. Like a priestess donning the final vestment before a rite.

"I do not want to break you. That's what he wanted." She gestured lazily toward the corpse, her fingers flaring faintly with residual electricity. "He built you into a throne. I would rather turn you into a crown."

Her hands folded behind her back, chin slightly lifted.

"I want your defiance. Your rage. Your hunger. I want your fire, Cin, not smothered beneath chains, but turned outward. Directed."

The heat in the chamber curled around her like smoke. She could feel the tension in him, coiled beneath his skin, and it thrilled her. Not fear—potential. He was ancient will made flesh, a living testament to wrath and exile, and Serina Calis had plans for creatures like that.

She stepped forward again, slower now, until her shadow fell across his snout.

"I freed you not because I am good, but because I am wise."

Her breath was warm now, touching the sensitive scarred flesh near his face, near the raw edges of the mask he had worn for too long.

"I do not ask for your loyalty," she whispered. "I will earn it. And when I do…" Her fingers grazed the broken rune at the side of his jaw—just once, featherlight. "You will choose me. Not because you are bound. Not because you are beaten. But because you want to."

She turned her back to him then, walking slowly toward the mouth of the tunnel, the wind beyond whistling like prophecy. Her voice drifted behind her, languid and cool.

"And that… that is what control really looks like."

She paused just at the edge of shadow and flame, not looking back—but fully expecting that, when he did follow, it would be because he chose to.